Winging It Travel Podcast · Wednesday, July 8, 2026
James Hammond described his painful experience with kidney stones, detailing the excruciating pain that led to hospitalization and IV medication. He mentioned having two stones, each around 4 millimeters, and is currently focused on managing the pain and drinking a lot of water for them to pass, predicting another two weeks for full recovery.
“And then to come back round to the kidney stones. It is awful. Uh, I don't know if you've suffered from them. The pain that you get when they first start moving. If you have one, if it starts moving, like I've got two. It's excruciating. Like it made me sick. Had to go hospital, get an ambulance. Get I.V. medication. And at the time we didn't know what it was, so we had to find out what it was. Actually, bit of relief. It's kidney stones in a weird way. These are things that are well known. Um, you can't really treat them, you just got to manage the pain until they come out.”
“If they're small enough, they'll pass through your urine, which they should do. They're 4 millimeters. So I'm now in this phase. I'm drinking a lot of water, trying to get them out. I guess my reflection on this whole last two weeks, where it's kind of begun is, you have to appreciate normality. And what I mean by normality is pain free, sleeping well, can go for walks, can go for a run, and just be normal.”
“So I'm predicting it's going to take another two weeks to really flush them out. So I'm trying to drink as much water as possible. I'm a bit delicate. I can't go outside for long. I need naps. I don't sleep well at the minute. So all these things are keeping me on my toes.”